USS Milwaukee (CL-5)

USS ''Milwaukee'' (CL-5) was an light cruiser built for the United States Navy during the 1920s. The ship spent most of her early career assigned to the Asiatic and Battle Fleets. In 1941, she was assigned to the Neutrality Patrol until she was refitted in New York in late 1941. She escorted a troop convoy to the Pacific in early 1942 before returning to the South Atlantic where she patrolled for German commerce raiders and blockade runners. In November, she intercepted one of the latter, but it scuttled itself before it could be captured. In 1944, she was temporarily transferred to the Soviet Navy and commissioned as ''Murmansk''. The ship was returned by the Soviets in 1949 and sold for scrap in December.

Description

''Milwaukee'' was long at the waterline and long overall, with a beam of and a mean draft of . Her standard displacement was and at full load.Whitley, p. 228 Her crew consisted of 29 officers and 429 enlisted men.Friedman, p. 469 The ship was fitted with a powerful echo sounder.

The ship was powered by four Westinghouse geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam generated by 12 Yarrow boilers. The engines were rated at and designed to reach a top speed of . At deep load she carried of fuel oil that provided her a range of at a speed of .Friedman, pp. 78, 469

''Milwaukee'' mounted a dozen 53-caliber guns; four in two twin gun turrets and eight in tiered casemates fore and aft. Her secondary armament initially consisted of two 50-caliber anti-aircraft (AA) guns in single mounts, but this was doubled to four guns during construction. ''Milwaukee'' was initially built with the capacity to carry 224 mines, but these were removed early in her career to make more space for crew accommodations. The ship carried above-water two triple and two twin torpedo tube mounts for torpedoes. The triple mounts were fitted on the upper deck, aft of the aircraft catapults, and the twin mounts were one deck lower, covered by hatches in the side of the hull. These lower mounts proved to be very wet and were removed, and the openings plated over, before the start of World War II. Another change made before the war was to increase the guns to four, all mounted in the ship's waist.

The ship lacked a full-length waterline armor belt. The sides of her boiler and engine rooms and steering gear were protected by of armor. The transverse bulkheads at the end of her machinery rooms were thick forward and three inches thick aft. The deck over the machinery spaces and steering gear had a thickness of 1.5 inches. The gun turrets were only protected against muzzle blast and the conning tower had 1.5 inches of armor. ''Milwaukee'' carried two floatplanes aboard that were stored on the two catapults. Initially these were probably Vought VE-9s, but the ship operated Curtiss SOC Seagulls from 1935 and Vought OS2U Kingfishers after 1940.Whitley, p. 229

Wartime changes

After 1940 the lower aft six-inch guns were removed and the casemates plated over. The ship's anti-aircraft armament was augmented by two quadruple 1.1-inch gun mounts by early 1942, although these were replaced by twin Bofors 40 mm gun mounts later in the war. At about the same time, ''Milwaukee'' received eight Oerlikon 20 mm cannon.

Service history

Inter-war period

The contract for ''Milwaukee'', the third ship named for the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was signed on 27 August 1917, and the ship was laid down by Todd Dry Dock and Construction Company, at their Tacoma, Washington shipyard on 13 December 1918. She was launched on 24 March 1921 and was commissioned on 20 June 1923. During the ship's shakedown cruise, she visited Sydney, Australia, during the Pan-Pacific Scientific Congress which opened on 23 August. With her new depth–finding equipment, ''Milwaukee'' surveyed the floor of the Pacific en route. "The Milwaukee Seamounts in the Northern Pacific are named after a set of soundings taken by ''Milwaukee'' in 1929."

During Fleet Problem VI, she collided with her sister ship in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on 1 February 1926, although neither ship was seriously damaged. ''Milwaukee'' and the destroyer assisted victims of a fierce hurricane which had devastated the Isle of Pines in October. She was assigned to Cruiser Division 2 of the Asiatic Fleet in 1928. During an engagement with "enemy" cruisers during Fleet Problem IX on 16 April 1930, the ship was ruled to have been knocked out by the exercise's umpires. Three years later, during Fleet Problem XIV, ''Milwaukee'' was spotted by fighters from the aircraft carrier and "sunk" by some of the opposing cruisers. In 1933, the ship was assigned to Cruiser Division 3 of the Battle Fleet. After the Panay Incident in December 1937, ''Milwaukee'' made a cruise through the Western Pacific from January to April 1938.

While steaming north of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico on 14 February 1939, ''Milwaukee'' discovered the deepest place in the Atlantic Ocean. The spot—which has a depth of —is now known as the "Milwaukee Deep". By January 1941, the ship had returned to Cruiser Division 2 which was now assigned to the Caribbean Patrol, commanded by Rear Admiral Jonas H. Ingram, part of the Neutrality Patrol established after the war began. Cruiser Division 2 was ordered to patrol the Atlantic between Trinidad, the Cape Verde Islands and the eastern bulge of Brazil in April, although ''Milwaukee'' was not immediately available. The ship, escorted by the destroyers and , began her first patrol in May, making a port visit to Recife, Brazil, on 1 June, before returning to San Juan, Puerto Rico. These patrols continued in the same manner for most of the rest of the year.

World War II

South Atlantic

''Milwaukee'', commanded by Captain Forrest B. Royal, was being overhauled in the Brooklyn Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December. The ship escorted a convoy to the Caribbean from New York on 31 December and then escorted eight troop transports from the Panama Canal to the Society Islands. She rejoined the South Atlantic Patrol Force upon her return and spend the next two years making patrols between Brazil and the African coast. On 19 May she received an SOS from the Brazilian cargo ship SS ''Commandante Lyra'', which had been torpedoed by the off the coast of Brazil. ''Milwaukee'' found the freighter abandoned, burning, and listing to port. She rescued 25 survivors from their lifeboats, including the ship's master. Reinforced by her sister and the destroyer , the fires were brought under control, cargo was jettisoned to lighten the ship, and ''Commandante Lyra'' was towed to Fortaleza, Brazil. Shortly after, on the night of 20 May, she was attacked by the ''Barbarigo'', commanded by Enzo Grossi (who mistook her for a " ''Maryland''- or ''California''- type battleship") with two torpedoes, which missed and were not even noticed by the American ships; however, Grossi claimed to have sunk his target, and was promoted to ''Capitano di Fregata'' (Commander) and decorated with the Gold Medal of Military Valour and the Iron Cross. Two subsequent commissions in 1949 and 1962 would eventually reverse the promotion and the decorations.

Rear Admiral Oliver M. Read assumed command of Cruiser Division 2 in October and hoisted his flag aboard ''Milwaukee''. On 21 November, ''Milwaukee'', her sister and the destroyer ''Somers'' intercepted the German blockade runner . When ''Somers'' had closed to , the German ship scuttled herself to prevent capture. ''Milwaukee'' rescued 62 of the ship's crew. On 2 May 1943, while the ship was under repair at Recife, her crew helped to fight a fire on the oil tanker . ''Milwaukee'' and ''Omaha'' collided on 31 May off the coast of Brazil, although the extent of the damage is not known. The ship sailed for the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 8 February 1944, preparatory to her temporary transfer to the Soviet Union in lieu of Italian ships allotted after the Italian surrender that could not be delivered. She escorted a convoy to Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 8 March before forming part of the escort of Convoy JW 58 during her voyage to Murmansk beginning on 29 March.

Soviet service

On 20 April, the ship was transferred on loan to the Soviet Northern Fleet in Murmansk. She was commissioned in the Soviet Navy as ''Murmansk'' and performed convoy and patrol duty in the Arctic Ocean for the remainder of the war. Afterward, she became a training ship and participated in the 1948 fleet maneuvers. On 16 March 1949, ''Milwaukee'' was transferred back to the United States. She was the first of 15 American warships returned by the Soviet Union. She entered the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 18 March 1949, and was sold for scrapping on 10 December to the American Shipbreakers, Inc. of Wilmington, Delaware.

Footnotes

References

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Further reading

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External links

Navy photos of ''Milwaukee''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milwaukee (CL-5)
Omaha-class cruisers
Ships built in Tacoma, Washington
1922 ships
World War II cruisers of the United States
Ships transferred from the United States Navy to the Soviet Navy
Cruisers of the Soviet Navy
World War II cruisers of the Soviet Union